Beatby Dale Sheldrake, directed by Josh Downing. Alone and injured following a near fatal car crash, Evelyn 1 (Jackie Mahoney) is beside herself, as she listens to her heart/inner voice (Evelyn 2: Laurel Schell). Taking stock of her life as she waits for help to arrive, she’s forced to face her inner demons and addictions. Darkly funny, sharp and theatrical; with some lovely spoken word dialogue and strong performances from Mahoney and Schell.

The Ballad of Sadie Wong by Andrew Lee, directed by Cassidy Sadler. Film noir detective story meets modern-day romance when day-dreamy…

So, first, a confession: I’d never read or seen Sharon Pollack’s Blood Relations. Not until last night, that is, at Alumnae Theatre Company’s opening night, directed by Barbara Larose, assisted by Ellen Green.

We are in the Borden home in Fall River, Massachusetts, 10 years after Lizzie Borden’s acquittal of the brutal double murder of her stepmother and father. Ragtime music fills the theatre and, in the dim pre-show lighting onstage, you can make out the main floor of the home: dining room and parlour, separated by a dark wood finish staircase. Down stage right is a pigeon coop; down left is a garden with a stone bench.

The ever present question: “Did you, Lizzie? Lizzie, did you?” sets the scene for a memory game of storytelling, played by Lizzie (Marisa King) and her friend/lover The Actress (Andrea Brown), taking the audience back in time to the circumstances leading…

The Deepest Trench (Chloë Whitehorn, dir. by Justen Bennett) is a sharp-humoured three-hander, an “almost love story” featuring a brother (Ryan, Ryan Bainbridge), sister (Kate, Stephanie Barone) and sister’s BFF (Emma, Jen Viens) – with relationship dynamics shifting when Emma comes to live with the sibs. The witty repartee includes some fun current event and pop culture references (the new Pope, the Bugs Bunny Abominable Snowman episode and Buffy ep. 4.04), as well as some very sweet in-jokes between Ryan and Emma. Ryan’s sweet, sensitive nature appears at first to be in direct contrast to the women’s brasher, aggressive approach to life – but things can change when times get rough and life-changing situations are at hand. Lovely use of storytelling. Excellent ensemble. Interested to see where this goes.

An important aspect of the New Ideas Festival at Alumnae Theatre is the script development afforded by the Saturday staged readings. In the first week of the Festival (March 9), the reading is “Falling“. Come see it!

Falling is a work in progress – not sure what draft playwright Jamie Johnson is on – and it’s important to present it as best as we can so the work can continue.

Constance (I’m playing her at age 48) is a very complex character – and every time I read her, I peel back another layer. And with four versions of her, facets of the same stone, we each look for similarities between ourselves and our younger selves. Now at 48, how is she the same as she was at 30, 18, 12? How different?

I’ve been pondering these questions myself since, in this rare instance – after years of playing younger or older, often younger – I’m playing close to my own age for a change.

Alumnae Theatre Company’s production of The Drowning Girls closed on Saturday night to another packed house at the end of an incredible run – and I was lucky to be able to see it one last time before our closing night celebration at Betty’s and the inevitable set strike the following day.

I have to say, this was a sad strike for me. For some reason, I’m going to miss this set a lot. More paint under my fingernails today, but I don’t mind.

Theatre maven and frequent Alumnae lighting designer Michael Spence commented that The Man With The Butterfly Hat was “a little gem”. My early favourite, dating back to November when the cold readings of the scripts were held (see https://alumnaetheatre.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/nif-2012-cold-readings-1-november-21/), was Lover’s Flight. In production, I was impressed with the performances and innovative staging of Let My Mind Run Dry, and the old Newfie dad (Douglas McLauchlan) inOur Elizawas a scream.

So now that we’re all recovering from St. Patrick’s Day festivities, here’s a run-down of Alumnae Theatre’s New Ideas Festival Week One reading and program from yesterday afternoon.

In the noon reading, Eating Pomegranates Naked, by Andrea Scott and directed by Kimberly Radmacher, a group of 30-something friends talk about life, and in the process unearth personal loss, sins of omission and secrets. The title was inspired by friends of Scott, a couple who eat pomegranates naked for easy clean-up/stain avoidance – plus its colourful, erotic, and even biblical, reference (was an apple or a pomegranate that figured in Adam and Eve’s downfall?) and in French, it’s grenade, a fitting word for the bomb that gets dropped during the opening scene’s dinner party. Lovely cast for this reading: Janine John, Roselyn Keladra-Sedra, Cameron Laurie, Khalil Abdul Malik and Jinny Wong. Stripping down the self takes courage and often…